The participation of East-Central Europe in the UNESCO Nubian Campaign in the 1960’s

- Case study of the Hungarian Archaeological Mission in Abdallah Nirqi in 1964 –

Virág Pabeschitz

This project investigates the participation of East-Central Europe in the UNESCO Campaign in the 1960’s, based on a case study of the Hungarian Archaeological Mission working in Abdallah Nirqi in 1964. The case study takes a multi-scalar perspective on the history of this mission in order to examine its outcome at local, regional, national and international level.

The research aim is to understand the different relations which characterized not just the first Hungarian mission in Nubia but also the complete picture of the UNESCO campaign and the development of Egyptian archaeology in East-Central Europe.

The project will engage with a set of issues pertinent to both archaeology as a global discipline, as well as the social sciences more broadly. Following the Hungarian team’s different relations to UNESCO, to Hungary, to other East-Central and Western European teams, to the locals in Egypt, and to the international scientific community, will help to understand not just the history of the excavations in Abdallah Nirqi but also the position of East-Central European Egyptology during the campaign. Investigating these topics, the project will add new information to the history of East-Central European Egyptology, to the history of the UNESCO Nubian Campaign, but will also examine how archaeologists worked together with the local population and what did the Hungarian team learn from this experience. Thus the results of this research will be of relevance to a wide range of scholars.

The research is a case study of investigating the social impact of an archaeological expedition working in the Nubian Campaign. It was a crucial time in the history of Nubia and Egypt, in the history of Hungary and in the history of Egyptology as well. A multidisciplinary approach using anthropological, theoretical, ethnographical and historical methodologies is envisaged. The research requires analyses of official and private documents, interviews with researchers and locals, archival research to follow the relations of the Hungarian mission.